A Canadian Heroine eBook

After that she dropped asleep, and Lucia watched till
early morning. It was the first of such watches
she had ever kept, and the awful stillness made her
tremble. Often she got up from her seat to see
if her mother’s breathing still really went
on; it seemed difficult to believe that there was
any stir whatever of life in the room. In those
long hours, too, she had time to revert to the doings
of the past day—­to remember both Maurice’s
words and her mother’s, and to separate, to some
degree, the truth from all exaggeration. Her
mind seemed to go back also, with singular clearness,
to the time of Percy’s coming to Cacouna, and
even earlier. She began to comprehend the significance
of trifles, which had seemed insignificant at the
time, and to believe in the truth of what Maurice
had told her, that even then he was building all his
hopes on the possibility of her loving him. She
wondered at herself now, as others had wondered at
her; but she still justified herself: “He
was my brother—­my dearest friend. He,”
and this time she did not mean Maurice, “was
the first person who ever put any other ideas into
my head. And I have lost them both.”
But already the true love had so far gained its rights,
that it was Maurice, far more than Percy, of whose
loss she thought. Once that night, when she had
sat quite without moving for a long time, and when
her meditations had grown more and more dreary, she
suddenly raised her hand, and her ring flashed out
in the gloom. By some instinct she put it to
her lips; it seemed to her a symbol of regard and
protecting care, which comforted her strangely.

When the night was past, and Claudine came early in
the morning to take Lucia’s place, Mrs. Costello
still slept; and the poor child, quite worn out—­pale
and shivering in the cold dawn—­was glad
to creep away to bed, and to her heavy but troubled
slumber.

All that day the house was kept silent and shut up.
Mrs. Costello had been much tried, the doctor thought,
and needed a complete calm in which to recover herself.
With her old habit of self-command she understood
this, and remained still, almost without speaking,
till some degree of strength should return. Lucia
tended her with the most anxious care, and kept her
troubled thoughts wholly to herself.

About two o’clock Lady Dighton came. Hearing
that Mrs. Costello was ill, she begged to see Lucia,
who came to her, looking weary and worn, but longing
to hear of Maurice.

It seemed, however, as if she were not to be gratified.
Lady Dighton was full of concern and kind offers of
assistance, but she said nothing of her cousin until
just as she went away. Then she did say, “You
know that Maurice left us yesterday evening?
I miss him dreadfully; but I dare say he thinks much
more of whether other people miss him.”

She went, and they were alone again. So alone,
as they had never been while Maurice was in Paris,
when he might come in at any moment and bring a cheerful
breath from the outer world into their narrow and
feminine life,—­as he would never come again!
‘Oh,’ Lucia thought, ’why could
not he be our friend always—­just our own
Maurice as he used to be—­and not have these
miserable fancies? We might have been so happy!’